It never had a 3000 mile lasing range.

The biggest lesson was to never use a commercial aircraft again which flexed as much as it did creating beam stability nightmares.

The tactical plan was to have several ABL s orbiting outside enemy territory and we hoped that they wouldn’t shoot them down:P

The tech was sound but the airframe choice was not, the aircraft flew too fast, too low and flexed too much, 11 inches from nose to tail exactly what you do not want for a stable laser platform.

Actually that idea is exactly what people want to happen next, instead of using mirrors on aircraft they want to use aerostats with mirrors. Drones with solid state lasers will do the targeting. Well that``s some of the current thinking.

Nothing practical about a one shot nuke mounted in orbit. You`d need thousands of them.